2017 Goals week 1:

1. Exercise:
Running: 300 miles: To date: 9.26 miles 
Biking: 500 miles: To date: 0 miles (rain)
Swimming: 50 miles: To date: 1.64 miles
Walking: 150 miles: To date: 1.58 miles
Weights/ yoga: 30 minutes a week (1560 this year): 110 minutes (yoga stretch, Cize crazy 8's, physical therapy for my back, Chisel strength ISO)

2. Grocery bill: Keep it under $7000 ($134.62/wk): $172.62 (uhhh...my 10 year old is in a growth spurt)

3.  Weight: maintain or lose up to 5 lb: scale had me under 140, so I'm good.

4.  Family:
Go on 12 family hikes: Zippo. Nada
Do game night once a week: Kid #1 was 3 for 3 in Clue today

5.  Crafts:
- Crochet a blanket (a "thermometer" granny square blanket, based on the temperature each day): 7 blocks down, pretty boring so far, temps have been 49 to 62.

- crochet a purse: nothing
- finish a quilting baby blanket: done

- participate in my quilting group's exchange: nothing
- make 12 snowflakes: nothing
- attempt to make socks: I've pinned a bunch of instructions?

6.  Sleep: keep track of it and see if the low dose estrogen helps: Haven't started.  Had one bad night sleep (4 year old 2 am wakeup)

7.  Food: eat vegan 2 days a week: Almost on Weds and Saturday.  This was a last minute whim of a goal, and I had no non-dairy option for my coffee.  So 
Weds had milk in my 1 cup coffee, and my (pre purchased frozen) veggie burger had cheese in it.
Sat had milk in my first cup coffee.  My lunch was fab!

8.  Cookbooks: Try 1 recipe from every cookbook I own:
This week: Roasted tomato and white bean soup from Bikini Bootcamp by Melissa Perlman and Erica Gragg.
Roasted brussels sprouts with rosemary from The Oh She Glows Cookbook by Angela Liddon (recipe included potatoes, which I left out because I didn't have them)
I also tried a new Mexican rice recipe in the Instant Pot.  It was not as good as my Spanish rice.

9.  Work:
     a. Skills: Learn enough programming to automate the data pulls for problem lots (which requires pulling data from 2 different databases).  Haven't worked on this yet.
     b. Personal:  Don't engage.  Really.  Found a 4th person that I need to "not engage" with.  Oops.

10.  Home: Contact contractor/ architect on adding a second bathroom. Nothing

11.  Garden: actually plant tomatoes this year.  Baby steps. Nothing
Ooh, need to add: put some ground cover in the back dirt patch

12.  Spouse: once a month lunch date: nothing

13.  Beverages:
- Drink less coffee and more tea (one cup coffee per day): Yes, Monday to Friday.
- Do not buy any wine aside from my two wine club memberships: Nothing
- Drink two 24-oz bottles of water a day, minimum.  My doc thinks that my occasional light-headedness when exercising is a combo between low blood pressure + slight dehydration.
Mmm...probably did okay for half the week.

2017 Goals

Taking a page out of Mavis' book (I haven't done this before because it felt too overwhelming), I have 2017 goals!

1. Exercise:
Running: 300 miles, half marathon in May, and *maybe* the Pier to Peak half in September (depends on how May goes)
Biking: 500 miles (to/from work 2x a week)
Swimming: 50 miles
Walking: 150 miles (more running, less walking)
Weights/ yoga: 30 minutes a week (use that Beachbody all-access!)

2. Grocery bill: Keep it under $7000

3.  Weight: maintain or lose up to 5 lb

4.  Family:
Go on 12 family hikes
Do game night once a week

5.  Crafts:
- Crochet a blanket (a "thermometer" granny square blanket, based on the temperature each day)
- crochet a purse
- finish a quilting baby blanket
- participate in my quilting group's exchange
- make 12 snowflakes
- attempt to make socks

6.  Sleep: keep track of it and see if the low dose estrogen helps

7.  Food: eat vegan 2 days a week

8.  Cookbooks: Try 1 recipe from every cookbook I own

9.  Work:
     a. Skills: Learn enough programming to automate the data pulls for problem lots (which requires pulling data from 2 different databases)
     b. Personal:  Don't engage.  Really.  There's that one guy who is annoying.  And that other guy who just has a different opinion.  And he's always right, and he's impatient.  He really doesn't like to listen.  He seems friendly, (and is), but in a "do not engage or get into a discussion.  You will only annoy him, it's obvious, and he annoys you too."  It's okay.  Smile, listen, move on.  Then there is that third guy.  Also a great guy but you don't agree on a few work-related things.  Just don't discuss those things.

10.  Home: Contact contractor/ architect on adding a second bathroom.

11.  Garden: actually plant tomatoes this year.  Baby steps.

12.  Spouse: once a month lunch date

13.  Beverages:
- Drink less coffee and more tea (one cup coffee per day)
- Do not buy any wine aside from my two wine club memberships
- Drink two 24-oz bottles of water a day, minimum.  My doc thinks that my occasional light-headedness when exercising is a combo between low blood pressure + slight dehydration.

2016 By The Numbers

A little summary of 2016:

Grocery spending: $6864.21
(does not include meals out, personal hygiene items, or school lunches)
As a comparison:
2015: $5706.05 (trying to be extra frugal)
2014: $10,261 (big weight loss year)

Crafty things:
- One large crocheted blanket
- Two quilts
- A couple dozen crocheted Christmas decorations (snowmen, snowflakes, stockings, trees)
- One sewn tote bag (Steelers!)

Exercise and Fitness:
Walking: 297 miles
Biking: 233 miles
Running: 114 miles
Swimming: 51.5 miles
Weight training/ yoga: 2118 minutes
Hiking: 9.4 miles

Chicken stew and cheddar dumplings

So, I grew up eating sauerkraut with pork and dumplings.  My mom always made them with bisquick.  I haven't made dumplings in years and years.  Probably the last time I made them was with sauerkraut - and my husband was not a fan.

Last year, he got me a "One Pot of the Day" cookbook from Williams Sonoma for Christmas, I think.  Today I used it for the first time, in my attempt to try recipes from all of my cookbooks.  (See the Cookbook tab for my tally!)

The stew was quite delish, and it came with homemade dumplings!  Hubby decided that they were pretty good, probably the addition of the cheddar.  My opinion of the stew:
1.  It didn't make enough.  Only dinner for four and a tiny bit leftover for lunch.  This is despite chopping a million vegetables (carrots, celery, onion).
2.  It was heavy on the chicken - 1.5 lbs for the dish.  My own personal preference would have been about half that much, and more vegetables.  Something to tweak next time.

Green chili egg puff recipe

http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/green-chili-egg-puff

This was delish!!

It's NOvember!

You know what that means folks!  Okay, maybe you don't.

Two years ago (2014) I was in the throes of losing the baby weight (yeah, the baby was 2, but who is counting).  I'd lost the same 15 pounds 3 times.  I was steady at losing 2 lbs a month.  For NOvember, I decided to do the following:

1.  Maintain my calories and macros.  For you 21-day fixers, that means the lowest 21-day fix category, aka 2 "yellows" (carbs a day).

2.  Substitute the carbs...NO CHEATS.  It's important to know that I wasn't cheating much (and for the record, you are allowed 3 cheats a week).  I eliminated: wheat, alcohol (wine), sugar, and fried foods.  So no swapping a yellow for wine, chocolate, or tortilla chips.

It's important to note that I wasn't eating MUCH of these already - no more than 4-5 servings a WEEK.  And wheat, while allowed, I got rid of that too.

3.  I didn't sweat the small stuff.  If flour or sugar was an ingredient (to make a roux, or in a dressing or sauce), I didn't sweat it.  I just avoided major sources of it all.  So, no dessert, no pasta, no bread, no flour tortillas, no tortilla chips.

Instead I stuck to potatoes, oats, corn, beans, corn tortillas, sweet potatoes, popcorn, rice, quinoa.

4.  I did allow Stevia in my coffee.


2014 November: down 7 pounds!!
2015 November: down 12 pounds!! (well, actually more like 5, then we all got the stomach flu.  I looked like a deflated balloon).

Fast forward a year later, and I'm about 2 pounds down from 2015 November 1.  So, it looks like while my goal weight might be a few pounds lower than I am right now (2, to be exact), it's MUCH easier to maintain with those extra 2 pounds.


These days, I'm quite happy with my weight, size, and health.  But I'm still doing NOvember because honestly - it makes me feel great.  It gets me out of my eating rut (yes, I do miss pizza!)  It makes me a cheap date for December holiday parties.  And it prevents holiday weight gain.  Let's face it, from mid-October to early-Jan, it's one big eat fest with Halloween candy, fudge,  holiday parties, Thanksgiving, etc.

Some of my friends suggest that maybe I should give myself a "day off" (like Thanksgiving).  Meh, sure I guess, but honestly - I can live without stuffing and rolls if I have mashed potatoes.  It works better for me to just not cheat.  It's ONLY 30 days.  (Truth be told, in 2015 the last month I lived on saltines and applesauce and plain pasta. So technically I didn't make it 30 days.)


ONE MORE THING! I'm giving up some electronics too!  No more games on my tablet, and I'm actively avoiding facebook after I get home.  This whole election is driving me BAT SHIT CRAZY.  I don't want to hear about it.  I don't want to talk about.  No conversation is going to change my mind (I already voted!), and I'm not going to change anyone else's.  I want to go to sleep on November 8 and wake up when it's ALL OVER.

A girl's gotta do what it takes to maintain her sanity.

Today's menu for NOvember 1: (so I can find ideas later!!)
Breakfast: a leftover sausage on a corn tortilla.  A smoothie.
Lunch: salad (lettuce, cucumber, peppers, radishes, feta, olives, sunflower seeds, sun dried tomatoes, dressing), and a sausage.
Snack: veggies and hummus
Dinner: Meatballs, roast cherry tomatoes with white beans, roasted Indian cauliflower

Peace out.

Soup and Bread!

Soup and Bread: a very frugal meal.  Not so easy to pull off in 100 degree weather.

Well, this week a few things happened.

It cooled down a bit, all the way to the 80s.
My little guy and my husband got a tummy bug (new rule, NO MORE PIZZA NIGHTS for FUNDRAISERS - from now on I'm donating $10 and eating at home.  This is not the first time.)

So soup and bread are easy on the tummy.

Getting sick is hard and easy on the budget at the same time.  Hard because some of the food you have goes to waste.  I tossed a pound of turkey that went uneaten, and 32 oz of yogurt that expired before we even opened it.  Also hard because I end up buying special foods, like gatorade and applesauce.

On the other hand, plain pasta, homemade bread, and saltines are cheap.

So, can I take credit for using a recipe in a book if I just sort of used it?  I started with the recipe for minestrone from American Wholefoods Cuisine by Nikki and David Goldbeck.  Great book.

But I used it as a general jumping off point.  My soup had some spinach (because we had it in the box), tomato sauce, water, a bouillon cube, carrots, onions, and pasta.  I left out the beans because of the tummies.  I added dried basil, extra garlic, and fresh parsley (because we had it in the box).

It was so good!  I made rosemary olive oil bread to go with it.

I have no pics!  But it is soup.

So this week, assuming the other two members of the family -ahem- dodge the tummy bug bullet - we have a lot of veggies to eat.  I have two pounds of roma tomatoes.  I have a roasted tomato and white bean soup in one of my cookbooks...that might have to be where we put those.  The last few times I've made the Prudent Homemaker's tomato basil soup, it's been too acidic.  I must have changed the type of canned tomato.

Also have lettuce, spinach, cucumbers, carrots, corn...probably some other stuff that isn't coming to me right now.